Day: February 12, 2017

The series reflects the technological advances and, to a certain degree, chaos we are all in right now. The balance between the pros and cons, profit and service, humans and technology, in this case, synths conscious or not conscious – where we all are in this evolutionary thing. It’s Humans. Human beings are coping with the technological revolution in terms of understanding it and living with it. Coping is the operational word, which gives technological advances some upper hand. But on the other hand, humans are humans; people are people as Depeche Mode declares.

Humans, the TV series on its second season this year, tried to explore further the probabilities of robotics, in this case, the synths, and conscious synths at that.That edge became more prominent in the second season, probably vying for a third, so the conflict would have to surface fast. It succeeded.

The first season showed humans needed synths for the least thinking, mechanical work. Synths proved much too better for this job. The synths were sold to ‘owners’ as modern commodities. Until they became conscious that made them almost like humans.

The phenomenon of ‘conscious’ synths changed the idyllic landscape.

Milo Khoury, techno-entrepreneur: Have you been in a pediatric ward Athena? Or seen a family take care of a kid with leukemia and asked them how it felt to give up every single hope and dream? Do lick of work 24 hours around the clock to make their child’s passage into death a tiny bit more bearable as I have?

I’ve come up with a solution.

Dr. Athena Morrow, AI researcher: Synth children are not the solution.

In the second season, humans demonstrated their need for synths to hold on to their loved ones. On the other had, conscious synths learned to feel and love. The meeting point is clear, yet blurred by subsequent events. It got to extremities that further blotted out what was ideally desirable. The dynamic between the two surged as the protagonists among humans are marginalized, while the more aggressive represented the business interests who also have human issues. Similar dynamic emerged among conscious synths: those who are sympathetic for their kind and those who are vengeful against their creators.

It is clear to me that reconciliation goes the way of the third season, if at all, but that would wait. The story thus far is far from ended. In the meantime, Humans created a following who would be easily disappointed with the termination of the series. We want the producers to show us where this is leading us to, a conclusion that may either be disturbingly plausible, or a happy one that exalts the human spirit and capacity reinforced by the most modern technology.

Season 1 laid the ground and Season 2 made the case, I would root for a 3rd season.

Wiki on mixed reception: The show is Channel 4’s highest rated drama since the 1992 programme The Camomile Lawn. It has been described as having “universal appeal” and as being “one of 2015’s dramatic hits.” The show has been described as “a bit dystopian and Black Mirror-esque.” A review in the Telegraph praised the show’s performances but said that the story is “conceptually … old hat” and “wasn’t breaking any new ground philosophically.”

In December 2015, Humans was voted Digital Spy‘s “Top Show of 2015,” described as managing “to stand out as something totally different in a TV landscape awash with cop shows and crime thrillers… And its fearlessness, its creativity and its quality all deserve to be recognised.”